75 years ago

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

kingstonlake wrote:

What was the reason the soviets declared to them they weren’t renewing their neutrality pact in the spring?

I’m sure they would probably have been aware that at some point it was coming, but they didn’t know when.... and we should have at least let it happen first before murdering that many people potentially unnecessarily. If we had let the soviets invade, then a month later it was still deemed necessary.... but we didn’t. We hadn’t exhausted all realistic options to save lives, because we were more worried about saving face than lives.

MSU addict wrote:

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

I’m sure they would probably have been aware that at some point it was coming, but they didn’t know when.... and we should have at least let it happen first before murdering that many people potentially unnecessarily. If we had let the soviets invade, then a month later it was still deemed necessary.... but we didn’t. We hadn’t exhausted all realistic options to save lives, because we were more worried about saving face than lives.

A Soviet invasion of Japan would have meant a tremendous loss of life as well.  As noted earlier, when we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, the Soviets had started to engage the Japanese.  That skirmish cost 96,000 lives.  The Soviets had moved more than a million troops toward the Manchurian border.

MSU addict wrote:

Floyd Robertson wrote:

I'm not sure a meeting was necessary. Send them a cable and tell them to send a ship and some scientists to the Bikini atoll at such and such date and time and watch what happens. Tell them if they don't surrender then the same thing is going to happen on their homeland in 72 hours. It would have helped to have a third nuke ready to go.

I mean, hypothetically.

While we did not have a third bomb ready to go, the US was capable of producing 3-4 nuclear bombs per month at the time we dropped the first on Hiroshima. 

As for DWags point, the cat was out of the bag when we dropped the first bomb.  No other country was close to developing a nuclear weapon at that point.  That is hind sight though, you never know what your enemy is truly capable of.

That said, in my opinion a demonstration was really not a practical option.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

MSU addict wrote:
While we did not have a third bomb ready to go, the US was capable of producing 3-4 nuclear bombs per month at the time we dropped the first on Hiroshima. 

As for DWags point, the cat was out of the bag when we dropped the first bomb.  No other country was close to developing a nuclear weapon at that point.  That is hind sight though, you never know what your enemy is truly capable of.

That said, in my opinion a demonstration was really not a practical option.

We did, actually. The third bomb was scheduled to be dropped on August 19th. Truman called for an abort to it (shortly after Nagasaki). It was already in the theater when Truman called it off. The three bombs were all scheduled to be dropped, with no further order from Truman required (i.e., he didn't have to call and give each dropping a "go" order). Truman was able to abort it, however, which he did with the third one.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:So you’re going with, even with the benefit of history “they said they would but we didn’t know that they’d follow through (even though they did follow through so we probably knew that)” Yeah I mean I get that you’re not going to change your mind but shit. I guess.

The fact is that we didn’t wait a week to see what would happen. We didn’t allow the Japanese to face down a two front war while already weakened and realize there was no point. We didn’t do that because we had already lost the race to Berlin and we were not going to allow the Soviets the chance to win in japan too. So we did it the day we did it, and with purpose beyond just ending the war. And we were right. Just based on the perception 75 years later, looking at the comments in the thread. It is what it is as they say.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:So you’re going with, even with the benefit of history “they said they would but we didn’t know that they’d follow through (even though they did follow through so we probably knew that)” Yeah I mean I get that you’re not going to change your mind but shit. I guess.

The fact is that we didn’t wait a week to see what would happen. We didn’t allow the Japanese to face down a two front war while already weakened and realize there was no point. We didn’t do that because we had already lost the race to Berlin and we were not going to allow the Soviets the chance to win in japan too. So we did it the day we did it, and with purpose beyond just ending the war. And we were right. Just based on the perception 75 years later, looking at the comments in the thread. It is what it is as they say.

First of all, if you want to lie about what I said/am thinking, whatever. It shows you're more interested in some internet "gotcha" than an actual discussion. I'm saying that while we knew that the Soviets would invade at some point, that wasn't factored into our timing because we didn't know the timing. Allies or not (and that at point, it was a tense alliance), we weren't telling each other what/when/how we were doing stuff.

If you want to go with Hasawega's assertion that we were in a race to drop the bomb before the Soviets invaded, you can, but there are mountains of evidence to the contrary, with countless examples of Truman and his administration, asking, urging, and thrilled with the invasion. Hasawega himself has even walked that back a bit.

It is also absurd that you claim that we "lost" the race to Berlin. It was agreed between the Soviets and the US/Britain, to allow them to take Berlin. That wasn't a race. Outside of Patton, we were happy to. It cost the Soviets 100,000+ lives. Yeah, Joe, it's all yours. Furthermore, the agreements were already made with regard to Japan, and what the Soviets would get if they got involved before the war was over (which gives them more impetus to move up the invasion after Hiroshima so that they wouldn't lose out on the spoils). Further-furthermore, the Soviets had planned to invade one of the Japanese islands on August 24th, Truman told them not to, and the Soviets backed down.

We were a country that had just finished the incredibly brutal campaigns of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. We wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, end of story.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

MSU addict wrote:
A Soviet invasion of Japan would have meant a tremendous loss of life as well.  As noted earlier, when we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, the Soviets had started to engage the Japanese.  That skirmish cost 96,000 lives.  The Soviets had moved more than a million troops toward the Manchurian border.

Maybe. Or maybe japan would have stopped at that point realizing they were as hopelessly defeated as they were when a bomb was dropped.

We don’t know, and that’s the whole point, and want the US wanted. Is to not find out the answer to that so that we could win it on our own.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

Maybe. Or maybe japan would have stopped at that point realizing they were as hopelessly defeated as they were when a bomb was dropped.

We don’t know, and that’s the whole point, and want the US wanted. Is to not find out the answer to that so that we could win it on our own.

Japan had been hopelessly defeated for months and months. They were letting their people die by the tens of thousands every week. They were training school girls to shoot rifles in the summer of 1945. They kept debating whether or not to fight on for days after 2 atomic bombs and the Soviet invasion, and still couldn't agree to it. After the emperor stepped in, a faction even attempted a coup so as not to surrender. But yeah, maybe they would have come to their senses.

Cameron wrote:I'm firmly with Travis on this one.

One thing I'll point out that hasn't been mentioned are the terms of surrender. We demanded unconditional surrender, and many on the Japanese side were concerned that we would try the Emperor as a war criminal and execute him. We didn't do that, and had we conditioned their surrender upon the survival of the Emperor, the nuclear option could have been avoided.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Cameron wrote:I'm firmly with Travis on this one.

One thing I'll point out that hasn't been mentioned are the terms of surrender. We demanded unconditional surrender, and many on the Japanese side were concerned that we would try the Emperor as a war criminal and execute him. We didn't do that, and had we conditioned their surrender upon the survival of the Emperor, the nuclear option could have been avoided.

This isn't entirely accurate.  Unconditional surrender just means that the winning party dictates whatever terms they want.  Japan wanted to keep the Emperor, but we refused to guarantee that as a condition, even after Hiroshima.  So the Soviet invasion and Nagasaki went forward.  They still debated, until the emperor finally stepped in (which was a rarity).  There was NO condition that the emperor be kept or removed.  The Potsdam Declaration intentionally left that vague, ultimately leaving it up to the Supreme Allied Commander that would oversee Japan (MacArthur).  We insisted on them accepting the Potsdam Declaration, and they did, with no conditions.  MacArthur chose to leave the emperor in a ceremonial role, in order to further good relations with the people of Japan.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Japan had been hopelessly defeated for months and months. They were letting their people die by the tens of thousands every week. They were training school girls to shoot rifles in the summer of 1945. They kept debating whether or not to fight on for days after 2 atomic bombs and the Soviet invasion, and still couldn't agree to it. After the emperor stepped in, a faction even attempted a coup so as not to surrender. But yeah, maybe they would have come to their senses.

They did come to their senses though, didn’t they? That’s the point Miami. We do have the benefit of hindsight here and you should use it. They DID stop fighting. Would they have stopped fighting facing insurmountable odds? Yes. Again, they did. It’s what happened. We just wanted to make sure the insurmountable odds were from us and not someone else. And given how convinced you, and most other people frankly, are that what we did was good, they were right that it was a pr campaign they could win.

Cameron wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:

This isn't entirely accurate.  Unconditional surrender just means that the winning party dictates whatever terms they want.  Japan wanted to keep the Emperor, but we refused to guarantee that as a condition, even after Hiroshima.  So the Soviet invasion and Nagasaki went forward.  They still debated, until the emperor finally stepped in (which was a rarity).  There was NO condition that the emperor be kept or removed.  The Potsdam Declaration intentionally left that vague, ultimately leaving it up to the Supreme Allied Commander that would oversee Japan (MacArthur).  We insisted on them accepting the Potsdam Declaration, and they did, with no conditions.  MacArthur chose to leave the emperor in a ceremonial role, in order to further good relations with the people of Japan.

Right, we refused to guarantee that as a condition, even after Hiroshima. If we had been willing to guarantee it as a condition, it might have been a little easier to coax surrender out of them without having to use nukes.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Japan had been hopelessly defeated for months and months.  They were letting their people die by the tens of thousands every week.  They were training school girls to shoot rifles in the summer of 1945. They kept debating whether or not to fight on for days after 2 atomic bombs and the Soviet invasion, and still couldn't agree to it.  After the emperor stepped in, a faction even attempted a coup so as not to surrender.  But yeah, maybe they would have come to their senses.  

They did come to their senses though, didn’t they? That’s the point Miami. We do have the benefit of hindsight here and you should use it. They DID stop fighting. Would they have stopped fighting facing insurmountable odds? Yes. Again, they did. It’s what happened. We just wanted to make sure the insurmountable odds were from us and not someone else. And given how convinced you, and most other people frankly, are that what we did was good, they were right that it was a pr campaign they could win.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Cameron wrote:

Right, we refused to guarantee that as a condition, even after Hiroshima. If we had been willing to guarantee it as a condition, it might have been a little easier to coax surrender out of them without having to use nukes.

So you're suggesting that we violate the agreement that we had with our allies?  That's a good way to run a war and set up a post-war world.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:

First of all, if you want to lie about what I said/am thinking, whatever. It shows you're more interested in some internet "gotcha" than an actual discussion. I'm saying that while we knew that the Soviets would invade at some point, that wasn't factored into our timing because we didn't know the timing. Allies or not (and that at point, it was a tense alliance), we weren't telling each other what/when/how we were doing stuff.

If you want to go with Hasawega's assertion that we were in a race to drop the bomb before the Soviets invaded, you can, but there are mountains of evidence to the contrary, with countless examples of Truman and his administration, asking, urging, and thrilled with the invasion. Hasawega himself has even walked that back a bit.

It is also absurd that you claim that we "lost" the race to Berlin. It was agreed between the Soviets and the US/Britain, to allow them to take Berlin. That wasn't a race. Outside of Patton, we were happy to. It cost the Soviets 100,000+ lives. Yeah, Joe, it's all yours. Furthermore, the agreements were already made with regard to Japan, and what the Soviets would get if they got involved before the war was over (which gives them more impetus to move up the invasion after Hiroshima so that they wouldn't lose out on the spoils). Further-furthermore, the Soviets had planned to invade one of the Japanese islands on August 24th, Truman told them not to, and the Soviets backed down.

We were a country that had just finished the incredibly brutal campaigns of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. We wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, end of story.

2-3 months after the war in Germany ended, and we did the bombing thing just shy of three months actually seems pretty straight forward if you don’t want to try to get it all twisted to fit in with the “maybe we didn’t do a bad thing and actually it was a good thing” line.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

MSU addict wrote:
While we did not have a third bomb ready to go, the US was capable of producing 3-4 nuclear bombs per month at the time we dropped the first on Hiroshima. 

As for DWags point, the cat was out of the bag when we dropped the first bomb.  No other country was close to developing a nuclear weapon at that point.  That is hind sight though, you never know what your enemy is truly capable of.

That said, in my opinion a demonstration was really not a practical option.

We did, actually.  The third bomb was scheduled to be dropped on August 19th.  Truman called for an abort to it (shortly after Nagasaki).  It was already in the theater when Truman called it off.  The three bombs were all scheduled to be dropped, with no further order from Truman required (i.e., he didn't have to call and give each dropping a "go" order).  Truman was able to abort it, however, which he did with the third one.

Cameron wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:

So you're suggesting that we violate the agreement that we had with our allies?  That's a good way to run a war and set up a post-war world.

Not unilaterally, no. Nothing would have stopped us from conferring with out allies about changing course in such a way.

MSU addict wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:

We did, actually.  The third bomb was scheduled to be dropped on August 19th.  Truman called for an abort to it (shortly after Nagasaki).  It was already in the theater when Truman called it off.  The three bombs were all scheduled to be dropped, with no further order from Truman required (i.e., he didn't have to call and give each dropping a "go" order).  Truman was able to abort it, however, which he did with the third one.

Yes there was a third bomb scheduled to be dropped.  When we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki the third bomb had not been fully assembled and its plutonium core had not left the US.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Cameron wrote:

Not unilaterally, no. Nothing would have stopped us from conferring with out allies about changing course in such a way.

Other than the fact that we had literally JUST finished conferring with them 4 days before Hiroshima. The Potsdam Conference.  From that meeting, came the Potsdam Declaration, that laid out what Japan needed to agree to.  

Cameron wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:


Other than the fact that we had literally JUST finished conferring with them 4 days before Hiroshima. The Potsdam Conference.  From that meeting, came the Potsdam Declaration, that laid out what Japan needed to agree to.  

Right, which means we could have discussed it during the Potsdam Conference, but we chose not to.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Cameron wrote:

Right, which means we could have discussed it during the Potsdam Conference, but we chose not to.

I 100% guarantee you that the role of the emperor was discussed at length during the conference.  

If you disagree with what the Allies, as a group, decided to do/not do about the emperor in the declaration, that's fine.  But you can't say it wasn't discussed, that nothing stopped us from conferring with the allies about it, etc.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

MSU addict wrote:
Yes there was a third bomb scheduled to be dropped.  When we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki the third bomb had not been fully assembled and its plutonium core had not left the US.

Fair point.  Most of the bomb was already on Tinian, and the plutonium was scheduled to be flown out there in the next 2-3 days when Truman stopped it.  So it wasn't literally ready to be dropped at a moments notice, but the final bit was ready to go from the US to Tinian.  I thought you were saying that it was further away than that, like parts still needed to be produced.

Cameron wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:


I 100% guarantee you that the role of the emperor was discussed at length during the conference.  

If you disagree with what the Allies, as a group, decided to do/not do about the emperor in the declaration, that's fine.  But you can't say it wasn't discussed, that nothing stopped us from conferring with the allies about it, etc.

Well, sure, whatever. You're the one who brought up agreements made with our Allies and Potsdam. That's beside the point. The point is that there were numerous times in the process when we could have said "recognizing that the Emperor is something of a deity in Japanese culture, we could maybe give some assurances that we're not gonna frog march him to a guillotine in the town square." Had we done so, surrender may have happened sooner, but we didn't.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Cameron wrote:

Well, sure, whatever. You're the one who brought up agreements made with our Allies and Potsdam. That's beside the point. The point is that there were numerous times in the process when we could have said "recognizing that the Emperor is something of a deity in Japanese culture, we could maybe give some assurances that we're not gonna frog march him to a guillotine in the town square." Had we done so, surrender may have happened sooner, but we didn't.

Yes, I brought up the allies, because those alliances were vital.  That's not beside the point.  We couldn't just stray from what had been decided, really long before Potsdam, that we would require unconditional surrender of the Axis powers, and that we would not make separate peace with them.  That was a huge part of the success of the Allied partnership.  I also don't believe that they would have surrendered prior to the first bomb, even given those assurances.  Not as long as it still took after both bombs and the invasion.  Their debate wasn't all that much about saving the emperor.  Sure, it was discussed and asked about as a concession, but the War Council didn't worship him as a god in like the people did (which was really more of a way of controlling the people, and was only really pushed hard during WW2 for those purposes).

But yeah, maybe it would have ended the war prior to the bomb if it happened.  But what else happens as a result?  You can't just take a major historical what if and have it exist in a vacuum.  It doesn't just stop with that, Japan surrenders in early August, no bombs, no Soviet invasion, and the rest of life goes on just like before, only better.  The short and long term consequences of breaking with the Allies would be immense.  The Soviets would have invaded anyway.  They wouldn't have listened to Truman stopping them from going on to Hokkaido.  They may have kept going further.  Next thing you know, they're the ones with all the cheap electronics and fuel efficient cars!  

Cameron wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Yes, I brought up the allies, because those alliances were vital.  That's not beside the point.  We couldn't just stray from what had been decided, really long before Potsdam, that we would require unconditional surrender of the Axis powers, and that we would not make separate peace with them.  That was a huge part of the success of the Allied partnership.  I also don't believe that they would have surrendered prior to the first bomb, even given those assurances.  Not as long as it still took after both bombs and the invasion.  Their debate wasn't all that much about saving the emperor.  Sure, it was discussed and asked about as a concession, but the War Council didn't worship him as a god in like the people did (which was really more of a way of controlling the people, and was only really pushed hard during WW2 for those purposes).

But yeah, maybe it would have ended the war prior to the bomb if it happened.  But what else happens as a result?  You can't just take a major historical what if and have it exist in a vacuum.  It doesn't just stop with that, Japan surrenders in early August, no bombs, no Soviet invasion, and the rest of life goes on just like before, only better.  The short and long term consequences of breaking with the Allies would be immense.  The Soviets would have invaded anyway.  They wouldn't have listened to Truman stopping them from going on to Hokkaido.  They may have kept going further.  Next thing you know, they're the ones with all the cheap electronics and fuel efficient cars!  

Whatever was agreed upon by whomever whenever, provision could have been made at some point regarding the emperor, which may have helped things along. I don't know how much more generally I can phrase that to make clear that "we agreed with our allies not to accept conditional surrender" is not a rebuttal to my point in any way. To be clear, I'm not saying that's the only factor that matters, or even that it was the most important factor. I only brought it up initially because it hadn't been mentioned.

As for your second paragraph, I will simply say that it's not at all necessary to intricately describe all aspects of hypothetical post war life in order to answer the question "did dropping the nukes save lives?"

GRR Spartan wrote:It was a happy day for my father-in-law who was a Seabee on Guam whose unit had been prepping for the invasion of Japan for weeks